


Vertigo

by Meteorga (orphan_account)



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Broken Families, M/M, Mind Games, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-20 13:50:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3652776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Meteorga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neptune can't stop falling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vertigo

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: Mentions of emotional abuse, alcoholism, and sexual themes. 
> 
> I wanted to try my hand at something darker than usual. Neptune isn't as cool and collected as he seems deep inside.

Before he can comprehend what has happened to him, Neptune is free-falling. 

A bird thrown from the nest before he was ready, the boy feels his stomach churn and his muscles tense as he's seemingly dropped into existence into a world that wasn't yet finished. White assaults his eyes. He can't decipher ground from sky, though he knows that in his mind he feels up-right, and a downward glance makes him feel waves of nausea, and a glance upwards makes him afraid of being sucked away. 

Neptune Vasilias lands on his knees hard, and his pained wince echoes inside his ears. He had forgotten how he sounded. The ground finally comes into focus, giving Neptune the first opportunity to investigate his surroundings. Firstly, the ceiling does not exist, and a void of fog hovers above him menacingly. Secondly, the floors and walls of the corridor that encases him are of the same color, almost blinding in their vibrancy. He attempts to stand, wobbling out of control and falling back down. His hands grasp at the floor, pushing his body upward as he climbs to his feet. The floor chills his senses, forcing him more and more alert. The tiles are clean and the hall seems impossibly long. Aqua hues scan forward, but can't connect with an end. Behind him there exists no discernible beginning, either, as though Neptune were simply dropped into the middle. Not the morning, nor the night, he existed within the noon of his surroundings. Dazed and confused, his fingertips danced along the wall to his left. He was searching for a door, and as though responding to his thought process, he grazes a door knob.

His hand clasps around the metal, and he holds his breath for reasons unknown. 

Neptune steps within.

He stands somewhere familiar, and smiles. He’s standing back home, the scent of his mother’s perfume flooding his nostrils. His mother stood before him, words escaping her mouth, surely, but not ones he could hear. Had he gone deaf? Had his mother simply forgotten to project a volume behind her speech? From her furrowed brows and clenched fist, he could tell she was angry. Perhaps he was better off not hearing the things she had to say. Was he being blamed yet again for small things that didn't matter? Misplaced anger from the thoughts she would only admit while she was drunk. Neptune, a masterpiece produced to a family that quickly fell apart. A father that didn't want the stress of a family any longer, and whom had walked out of the boy's life before he could produce a solid picture in his mind of what that void was supposed to look like. Neptune, the boy his mother blamed. The seventeen-year-old felt like a child again. Small, weak, unwanted. He averted his eyes from his shouting mother and turned around, tiny hand clasping on a doorknob that shouldn't logically have existed there.

Neptune's hand turned as he remembered to breath.

The hallway isn't nearly as disorienting the second time around, though Neptune is still blinking back dots as he looks around. Another door exists across from him, and panic erupts in his chest. What would he see this time, perhaps more memories that he'd rather ignore? His eyes follow his feet as he watches his stride, the color of his shoes providing stark contrast to the brightness surrounding him. The color of his clothing helps him feel more grounded somehow, reminding him of himself. As he steps into this new room, Neptune is assaulted with more of the familiar. He sees himself, tangled up in the grasp of a male he barely knew. A male he substituted within his head for Sun Wukong during a lustful night he would soon regret; a pattern of vulnerability that snaked its way into Neptune’s life more and more with his new-found freedom. He was in love with his best friend. He craved the blond more than anything. These nights left him feeling dirty, and no amount of showering could scrub him clean. 

Sun was the light in his life, the boy who reminded him that life could be worth living. He'd give anything to make Sun his, but was too afraid to ask for his commitment, too afraid to ask to be loved. Too afraid of being left behind and getting discarded like the peel of a snack that Sun was finished with. He knew there was mutual attraction. He knew there was mutual care. Yet, Neptune seemed content with one-night stands and sinful thoughts when he managed to be alone, swimming out to sea with room to drown in his own desires. Neptune felt disgust and shame, shielding his eyes from the sight of himself as he twisted the doorknob behind him and walked back into the blinding light that he couldn't escape. He wished he were smart enough to chase what he wanted instead of running into the arms of boys who became a blur for temporary comforts. 

What had he done to deserve this? Would he wander this hall and relive his past miseries and mistakes forever? Had Neptune wasted his chance at a happy life and this was all he had left? The teen crumpled against a nearby wall, tears sliding down his cheeks as he thought about Sun. Gentle touches that never lasted, rehearsed sweetness that would never escape his lips. He thought of the friends he had made, the life he was creating for himself, and the future he had dreamed of. Had he missed his chance? 

Neptune feared he was dead already.

Suddenly, Neptune felt light. Lighter than he had ever felt. The cold of the ground against his rump and the chill against his back subsided as his body began to lift. His eyes glared into the void above, and he started to scream. He screamed louder than he ever had before, until his throat grew sore and eventually numb. Screamed louder than he had at his mother when he were six, causing a red mark to become implanted on his cheek. Cried out louder than he had at Sun when he was fourteen, and the blond had nearly gotten himself killed after daring to invade Neptune's heart in the way that he had. He yelled until all went numb and fog enveloped him. Suddenly he woke up.

Neptune twitched his fingers. One by one each digit began to lightly dance across the wood of the chair he sat in. His vision was hazy, his throat was sore, and his ears ringed. Across from him sat Ozpin. Nothing passed between them, except for Neptune being excused back to his room. The boy was in far too much of a daze to understand why he had been there, but he remembered where he was supposed to go at least. 

Ozpin watched him leave his office, and released a deep sigh when that door had finally closed. He had spied, pried, and opened that boy's mind in the same way he had done to a dozen students by now, and the guilt never let up. Neptune, like all the others, had a lot of repressed thoughts and memories, but none of the kind he was looking for. This hadn't gotten him any closer to discovering who threatened his students, his school, and his  _home_. All of this prying had been for naught. 

He had traumatized Neptune for nothing, and it was a crime he would never experience a penalty for. It was a crime that he felt great shame over. But it was a crime that he honestly believed was necessary. Neptune didn't know who to blame. Neptune wouldn't know what was wrong. Neptune would merely feel a ringing in his head for a week or so and cry over memories he believed he had forgotten. Ozpin could only hope that the boy could learn to deal with the pain he had repressed, and perhaps with enough alcohol, Ozpin could repress them too. Some things were better left buried. 

Ozpin thought this was a necessary evil. 

 


End file.
